Marina Bay with Suntec City and National Stadium and Kallang in the background.

3/13/2008

Pertinent lessons from Malaysia

Below are 3 lessons which I fully agree with PN Balji of the Today paper.
Lesson 1: A good leader must lead from the front, especially when it comes to important issues.
Lesson 2: Be discerning when listening to views and trust the right people. Finally ownership. It is now 5 days since the electoral hammering....It is time for Abdullah to own up to the damage inflicted on his party and the people who had pinned their hopes on him.
Lesson 3: Accept responsibility, assess the mood of the people and decide how to move on.
What a good piece of lesson and what a nice timing.

9 comments:

Anonymous
said...

If Abdullah goes, all the hard work Singapore has put in which has resulted in the current cordial relations with Malaysia will go down the drain. His successor Najib is a Mahathir appointee, and will most likely steer relations back to the days of confrontational politics. Bye bye IDR.

Anwar is kidding himself if he believes that the results were achieved solely on the back of his efforts. Yes, there was a groundswell of dissatisfaction but unbeknown to most layment, there was a concerted effort from the Mahathir/Najib team to sabotage UMNO from the inside, as they saw this as the most opportune time to get rid of Pak Lah. Don't read too much into the results because for all you know it could just be a fluke, and four or five years from now, with Pak Lah out of office and a new PM installed be it Najib or someone else, the BN could romp home with the same massive victory they got in 2004. It has also yet to be proven that the opposition alliance can withstand the test of times. If we take the fiasco in Perak as a benchmark, I am not too optimistic. PAS has been magnanimous in dropping their Islamic state demand from their manifesto for the first time ever, but it seems the DAP is going on a witchunt against Malays and refusing to tone down their overwhelmingly Chinese chauvinisticcharacter. Their success in capturing Penang has obviously gone to their hands and they now think they can be a one man show and dispense with the Malays. The Malays are closely watching how they administer Penang. Any wrong move on their part will be seized upon with glee by UMNO to restore the status quo.

the opposition came to power on a bunch of reasons. i agree that anwar is not the sole reason. you are right to say that mahathir/najib played a big role too. mahathir still has a lot of strings to pull.

anwar i believe is still a force to reckon with.

DAP better wake up and play their role carefully and work with PKR and PAS if they want to remain in favour. it is dicey, agree.

Redbean, you think PAP is going to lose any sleep over the worry that the Malaysian election results can be replicated in Singapore ? Don't bet on it. Firstly, there is no Singaporean version of Anwar. Secondly, Singaporeans do have legitimate grouses against the government, but none of them are as serious or threatening as the ones that the Malaysians have to grapple with. Thirdly, the GRC system will ensure that the PAP will always have the advantage. Fourthly, the PAP can always use the time tested method of handing out goodies and subtle coercion about MUP, IUP, Lift Upgrading to ensure the bulk of the electorate will always come back to them even if some may have flirted with the idea of voting for opposition. Singaporeans just have too much at stake to risk voting for a rag tag bunch of political misfits. Nope, it is good to see the Malaysians finally exercising some political maturity, but Singaporeans political maturity is still stuck in the Dark Ages.

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